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Thursday, July 10th
Mase Barnett stepped out of Java by the River and took a cautious sip from the steaming paper cup in his hand. He sighed with relief. Hot and strong, the way he needed it today. He’d pulled a long shift yesterday and then rolled out early this morning to take another as one of six police officers in his hometown, two of whom were out on vacation leave.
Being short on staff was hell in the summer, when River Ridge, Washington, population 4,012 on a quiet day, was crowded with fishermen and their boats, along with city folks streaming up from Portland and Vancouver to enjoy the small-town ambience and the latest food and craft fair the chamber had put together.
Add in the locals misbehaving in the summer heat, and it kept the small River Ridge police force hopping.
The sunny Main Street on which Mase stood was quiet now, but in a few hours this and adjacent streets would be choked with vehicles and pedestrians. The local school, public library, Panida Theater and community center would be full of local artists and the people perusing their offerings.
The city park a block north would feature fast food and libations from the two bars on this end of town, Wiley’s and the In & Out. Neither bar was worth a damn in Mase’s opinion, which meant the taps would be flowing cheap beer with the price jacked up.
To add to the mix, later in the afternoon fishermen would begin rolling back through, coming off the river for the day. Mase would be out doing traffic control, probably on this very corner, where Main Street came in from the east and connected with Riverview to head north along the bluff above the river.
“Officer Barnett,” called a voice. “Top of the mornin’ to you.”
Mouth full of coffee, Mase lifted his chin at the pair of silver-haired men in golf wear who were stepping up on the sidewalk. He swallowed. “Cole, Jim. Looks like you two are ready to hit some long ones.”
“Eight a.m. tee time,” Cole Allen, the semi-retired owner of River Ridge Sports & Hardware, acknowledged.
The new eighteen-hole golf course laid out along I-5 east of town was popular with locals and golfers from the nearby cities alike.
“Gives us time for a good round, then lunch. And a cold one,” Cole Allen added, patting his rotund middle. “The clubhouse is the only decent place to get a beer in this burg.”
“Keep the metrop’lis safe for us while we’re gone,” Jim Hardy quipped, eyes twinkling. “But don’t be jumping in front of any more bullets, y’hear?’
Mase mustered a smile for the two men. “I’ll try to keep things on the down low.”
“Good to see you back in uniform, Mason,” Cole said, his eyes misting.
His companion nodded. “Yessir. Marie darn near wore out the sidewalk between our house and church, lighting candles for you every day while you were in intensive care.”
“Bullet’s nothing to mess with,” Cole went on. “And look at you—already back on the street, taking care of business.”
“I’m still a little sore,” Mase began. “But my physical therapist said—”
“Especially since you took that bullet saving Cole’s sorry ass,” Jim added with a sly wink for Mase.
Cole nodded, reaching to lay his hand on Mase’s good shoulder. “That’s the truth, son. Still see you falling when I close my eyes.”
“Just have to be careful for a while,” Mase tried again.
“You look great,” Cole said as if Mase hadn’t spoken. “Just great. Doesn’t he?”
“Good as ever,” Jim agreed, nodding.
“I’m fine,” Mase assured them, backing away and brandishing his coffee cup. “As you can see. Thanks for your concern, Cole, sure appreciate it. Jim, you tell Marie thanks too.”
God knew by now he could do this routine in his sleep. Didn’t mean he enjoyed it.
He’d been cleared for light duty four weeks ago, spent three weeks riding the River Ridge PD station desk and finally gotten back on the street a week ago. He could feel his shoulder, but right now it was only a mild ache, nothing he couldn’t handle for the privilege of a little freedom. The bullet had gone through muscle, missing bone and more importantly, his heart.
“Damn sorry you couldn’t make the parade on the 4th,” Jim complained, shaking his head as if Mase was at fault but forgiven. “You’d have made a perfect grand marshal. Better ‘n that dumbass Flaherty from the bird refuge.”
“Ah. Yeah, sorry I missed that, though I’m sure he did fine. Gotta go,” Mase said, already side-stepping. “Enjoy your game.”
No one ever mentioned the downside of being a hero, which was that those who expressed their gratitude expected him to reflect their emotion back at them like a goddamn mirror, reassuring them that he was fine with having nearly died protecting them and their monies in the River Ridge Savings & Loan.
And wasn’t it great that he was back on his feet to do it all over again if necessary? Hell, yeah. Bring it.
His anger rattled him. He’d signed on to protect River Ridge, and he was an adult—he knew when he signed up that he’d be placing himself in harm’s way. He had no business getting pissed off because it had happened.
Except that he was.
Because it seemed no one wanted to know how he really was, just to reassure themselves that he was back on the job, protecting their town. Not that he wanted to share the details of his recovery, which had not been enjoyable, but when everyone’s gazes skittered to his shoulder and smiles turned uneasy, it made him realize no one in this town wanted to face the fact that if he could nearly die in a heartbeat, so could they.
And that felt too close to his own family’s downplaying of the incident. His own father was pissed at hell at him for getting shot, and his mother and brother had followed their usual pattern of smoothing things over so Harold Barnett’s anger would cool.
Just as the citizens of River Ridge seemed to want to forget he might be back, but at a cost.
Thus, instead of feeling appreciated and cared for by the town’s jovial concern, Mase felt like a beetle scuttling away from hungry birds as he crossed the sidewalk to the SUV he’d been assigned for the day. The black-and-white backed up to the curb bore the emblem of the River Ridge PD on the doors and a light bar on the roof.
He opened the door, balancing his coffee. A redhead in a late model Lexus drove slowly by, giving him a little wave and a flirtatious smile. Mase lifted his chin in return, but kept his smile impersonal.
Two skinny preteen girls on bikes wheeled past, gawking at him. He waved and they both blushed and giggled. He winced as one girl’s bike wobbled dangerously, but she looked back at the street and righted it. He could hear their hushed, excited voices as they rode away. He really should go after them and give a lecture about wearing helmets, along with a discount voucher from a big box store in Vancouver, a few miles to the south. But the mood he was in, he didn’t want to ruin their innocent fun by growling at them.
His radio squawked. Relegating the girls to another time, he swung into the SUV, already starting the engine, and ignoring the twinge of pain in his left shoulder as he did so.
“Any officer in the vicinity of Maple and Corbett,” said the local 911 dispatcher. “We have a domestic at 313 Maple. Male subject, reportedly inebriated.”
“Shit,” Mase muttered. He picked up his mike. “That’ll be Willy Jasco. I’ve got it, Marlene.”
“Okay, Officer Barnett,” the dispatcher said in the preternaturally calm voice 911 operators somehow achieved. “Officer on the way.”
With so little traffic yet, Mase didn’t use his siren. He hit the lights, though, to let folks know he was on P.D. business. He pulled out of his parking spot as an ancient pickup approached, pulling an equally decrepit boat. The driver braked and waved him on through the open truck window.
Mase nodded his thanks and headed north on Riverview.
In two minutes he was backing into the driveway of a small, older house on the farthest street north before the town’s nominal ridge fell away into a deep, timbered ravine. The place was a mess, with a broken chair, pieces of a Styrofoam cooler and other junk in the long grass of the front yard.
Behind the house, blackberries had been allowed to take over, an ancient car protruding from their green coils. The invasive vines crept along the sides of the house too, stealthily devouring the old place.
The neighbors had been after the Jascos for years to clean up the property, and Mase and his fellow officers had issued numerous citations, but the new chief of police, Lt. Gloria Montez, hired from the ranks of the Portland PD, was trying the patient and gentle approach.
Mase could’ve told her it wouldn’t work. Willie Jasco was as trashy as his place, and not only that, he was drunken trash. Today he’d evidently started drinking for breakfast. Hoo-fucking-ray for Saturdays.
Mase grabbed a pair of disposable gloves and pulled them on before he got out of his vehicle. One hand on the butt of his pistol, he walked along the broken walkway to the front stoop, and knocked on the door. His nostrils flared at the dank scent of mildew and rot emanating from the ancient armchair that leaned aslant in one corner of the small porch.
The inner door flew open.
“Oh, thank Jesus you’re here,” said the young woman on the other side of the torn screen door. “Dad’s on a tear this morning.”
She was short and rotund in dirty pink sweats, her hair greasy blonde at the roots and a weird reddish hue at the ends. She had a bruise on one round cheek, and a large, wet stain on her sweatshirt.
“Hi, Brittney,” Mase said. “You okay?”
She nodded, holding her wet shirt out with one hand. “Yeah, just spilled my soda when Dad, uh, fell.”
Fell, his ass. The old man had hit or shoved her. Mase would try to get a statement out of her later. “Okay. You wanna step out here and let me in?”
His words were followed by the smash and tinkle of glass inside the house.
“Whozzat? Don’t let no sumbitch in my house,” a slurred male voice yelled.
The blonde flew out of the house, nearly knocking Mase off the porch with the screen door. He sidestepped with the swiftness of practice and let her scurry past him and around the corner of the house, where she huddled, watching.
Mase stood to one side, behind the frame of the door, and raised his voice. “I’d like to come in, Mr. Jasco. See how you’re doin’.”
An empty beer bottle hit the screen and flipped through the tear to thud to the porch. It rolled toward Mase and he kicked it aside.
“Like hell you’re comin’ in ‘ere,” the man slurred, closer now. He slammed open the screen, which banged against the far side of the doorway from Mase, its springs breaking free with a metallic groan.
Willie Jasco slumped against the door frame and focused blearily on Mase. He was a head taller, skinny with a pronounced potbelly, scraggly gray hair and whiskered, sagging face. He smelled of stale cigarettes, urine and other odors that said he hadn’t bothered to bathe or change his clothing for days. Mase ignored his stench and his comments with the stoicism of long practice.
The drunk sneered. “Oh, iss you. Sent the fuckin’ hero after me, eh? Whatcha gonna do, off’cer ... ss-shoot me?”
Laughing uproariously at his own wit, the man bent double.
“No, Willie,” Mase said. “I’m gonna take you in, let you sleep this off.”
He grasped the man’s near hand, clicked a cuff on it, and then slid behind him to cuff his other arm. He braced the drunk against the sagging porch rail, and patted him for weapons, reading him his rights as he did so, and breathing as shallowly as possible.
That done, he straightened and turned his head away to check on the daughter. She stepped out of cover, crossed her arms and canted one hip, her expression resigned. This was not the first time she’d seen her father in this position, and it almost certainly wouldn’t be the last.
Mase grasped Jasco’s arm to pull him upright, but something about the move maddened the older man.
“No! Ain’t goin’ t’no goddamn jail!” Still leaning over the railing, Willie Jasco struggled mightily, windmilling his feet. He got in one good kick on Mase’s thigh. Thankfully he was wearing only ancient, filthy canvas deck shoes and not boots, but it still hurt like a sumbitch, especially when the impact jerked the healing tissues in his shoulder.
With a grunt of pain, Mase rocked back. He grabbed for the man just as Willie did a header off the railing and into the encroaching blackberries.
Mase winced in reluctant sympathy. That had to sting. And now he’d have blood to deal with on top of all Willie’s other noxious qualities.
“Auggh! I’m hurt, I’m hurt! Bastard,” the drunk squalled, struggling on his back like a landed fish. “Y’pushed me! P’lice brutality!”
Brittney Jasco ventured nearer, and peered down at her father, who now had blood welling from scratches on his face and scalp. “No, he didn’t, Dad. An’ he has one of them new video cameras running, so you might’s well give that story up.”
She gave Mase a bashful grin and shook her head. Her swollen cheek made the smile crooked.
Mase went down the stairs and paused beside her, his voice low, body turned so he could keep an eye on her father. “I want you to ride in with us, Brittney. File a report.”
She backed away. “Oh no. I’m fine, Officer Barnett. ‘sides, I gotta be to work over at the Bait n’ Go. Elmer won’t like it if I’m late.”
Mase sighed. She was a sweet kid, but what the hell would it take to make her see she deserved better than this?
“Okay. I’m gonna have to put your bruises in my report, though. You put some ice on your cheek, you hear? And if anything else hurts you get to the urgent care.”
She nodded, ducking her head, a blush covering the other cheek. “I will.”
Mase propelled her bleeding, protesting and stinking excuse for a father into the back of the SUV, and headed back toward the police station and the tiny, attached jail. He left the front windows of the rig open against the smell coming from the back seat.
He drained his coffee cup and tossed it onto the floor, craving more caffeine to rev him up for what was gonna be a long day. He could also use another painkiller.
Fuck, more than anything, he needed a night off. He needed a few drinks, some laughs and a pretty woman who wanted his kind of relaxation ... some hot, naked, dirty sex.
* * *
A FEW HOURS LATER, his fantasy looked even further away.
Standing in the broiling July afternoon sun, Mase held up his hand at the traffic waiting on Riverside, and stepped back toward the curb in front of Java by the River, motioning for a waiting truck to pull out of the parking lot for river boaters.
The driver revved his engine and pulled forward, leaving Mase to lift his department ball cap, swipe the sweat off his forehead with his forearm, and slap the cap back on his head. Sweat ran down his back under his khaki uniform. His cotton singlet would soak up some of it, but damn, he was looking forward to stripping down and diving into a cool shower.
His shoulder throbbed steadily, the motion of waving traffic tugging at healing tissues. In between vehicle changes, he could hook his thumb in his belt to support the arm, but it still hurt and in the hot sun his head was beginning to pound in a matching rhythm.
“Hey, Mase,” bellowed a deep voice behind him.
Mase looked around at the man on the curb, clad in navy pants and a white tee with the logo of the local EMT and Fire department. Nearly as wide as he was tall, Dave Paddle was solid muscle, smiling and sunburned under his short, blond hair.
Mase walked backward toward him, while motioning to the second boater to head east on Main. “Dave, how’s it goin’, buddy?”
“Just got off shift, and I’m fuckin’ beat,” his friend answered. “Bad accident up by the north end of the golf course. Two out-of-state rigs tangled with a semi. Everyone lived, but a couple of them are tore up, gonna be spending their vacation at Providence Medical.”
“That’s rough.” Mase kept an eye on the traffic.
“Anyway,” Dave said. “Barbecue at my place tomorrow. You up for some cold beer and hot women?”
Mase grinned at his old high school classmate. “Yeah, too bad you don’t know any hot women.”
The other man snorted. “Now, that’s where you, my friend, are wrong. My new girlfriend is smokin’, and she’s bringing a friend or two. Fresh bait, my man.”
Mase waved back at the boaters as they passed. “Nice of you to date someone who’s visually impaired. What time and what should I bring?”
Dave cackled. “Teri’s baby blues work just fine, asshole. Bring beer, what else? The food’s handled—another advantage of having a girlfriend. She’s picky about what she eats, so she organized that. Party starts at seven.”
“Great, I’ll be there.”
Mase jogged back out into the street and motioned for the street traffic to resume, feeling more cheerful. He wasn’t surprised to hear about Dave’s new girlfriend. The guy was a chick magnet, and had been since high school. The uniform didn’t hurt, either.
Undoubtedly, there would be pretty women at the party, unattached and possibly willing. But after supper and a few beers, Mase would head down to Portland, to the place where the women liked the same things he did.
Things that he had to hide from nearly everyone he knew. Things that could cause him to lose this job and his status as River Ridge’s hometown hero faster than he could say four little letters—BDSM.
* * *
THAT SAME AFTERNOON, a few miles to the south
When Natalie Cusco’s phone warbled the opening bars of ‘I Will Survive’ by Aretha Franklin, she picked it up without opening her eyes and put the phone to her ear. The bright, hot July sun poured over her body and beat against her eyelids.
“Hi, Mama.”
“Hel-lo,” her mother’s halting but cheerful voice replied. “How’s my girl today?”
“Good, Mama,” Natalie replied. “How’re you doing today? You up and around?”
She stretched her bare legs and then relaxed, feeling a trickle of sweat slide down between her bikini clad breasts and over her bare belly.
She was staying with her friend Teri in her stylish condo in Vancouver, Washington. Teri’s patio was open to the green space behind the condo, but since it was a weekday and most people, including Teri, were at work, Nat had dared to show her pale body. She wasn’t into dark tanning, but she was determined to get some color on her skin. Pale could work, ten pounds overweight could work. Together, on her, they did not work.
“’Course I’m up and ... around,” her mother chided. “Already had breakfast. Lara’s doing her ... exercise show before she goes off to classes, and I’m ... enjoying the morning on the front porch.”
“Good.” Nat reached for her plastic water bottle and lifted the cold sweating cylinder to her mouth to drink thirstily. Then she glided it down over her chest and rested it in her cleavage. There were times that thirty-four-D breasts were not a blessing. Summer heat was one of them. “Did you do your exercises?”
“I did. My therapist says I’m getting ... stronger.”
“That’s great, Mama. Just be careful, okay? Don’t try to do too much.”
Wendy Cusco had been hit by a car, crossing a busy Seattle street near her home. Luckily, she’d been in a crosswalk, thus legal, and the driver of the car had had insurance, because her injuries had been severe enough that Wendy had lost her job as a secretary, unable to perform many of the common office activities such as bending, lifting and walking.
That her head striking the pavement had also caused some brain damage was the aching core of her family’s concern. She was still the same positive, cheerful woman she had always been, but her thoughts and speech were halting, and at times muddled. Thus, even if her body healed completely, she would likely never work again.
Now she lived with her youngest daughter in a small house in Seattle. Lara was a teacher who had divorced her husband after she discovered he had a girlfriend. She received alimony every month along with her paycheck, so she could afford to keep the house, a nice car and a permanent guest.
Wendy tsked at Nat’s concern. “It’s been almost two years. I have to push if I’m gonna get better. I’m only fifty-two. When I get to eighty-two, you can tell me not to over-do. Anyway, I wanna hear about you. We miss you.”
Nat moved the cold water bottle down over her belly and rolled it down the top of one thigh, enjoying the contrast between the chill and the sun’s heat on her skin.
“I miss you too,” she said. “But you’re doing so well, it was time for me to get out of your hair. And Lara and I needed a little distance.”
Her mother might miss her, but Nat doubted Lara missed her a whole lot. Nat had stayed with her frequently when their mother was in the hospital and even moved in for a short time. That had been too much togetherness for the sisters, especially when Lara joined in the chorus of doctor and therapist telling Nat to back off and let her mother take more responsibility for her own recovery.
And this was true, Nat reminded herself. Wendy no longer required help with self-care, so there was no reason Nat couldn’t move three hours away and try to put her own life back together. Wendy had encouraged her to do so, but she’d been nicer about it than Lara. Although Nat was painfully aware there’d been relief in her mother’s face when Nat announced her plans to return to Vancouver. That had hurt—even her own mother found her ‘too much’ to deal with.
“Well, I’m so proud of you for your big plans,” her mother said. “But I worry about my girl. Is it hard, being back in Vancouver?”
Nat had just returned to the city flung out along the northern bank of the mighty Columbia River. She’d moved to Seattle to stay with Lara the winter before, when Nat’s own marriage fell apart. The Cusco girls so far had a zero batting average when it came to marriage—they’d all chosen cheating assholes. Starting with their mother’s marrying their father.
“Not really,” Nat lied airily. Yes, it was hard, but she was a big girl, she’d deal. “Teri’s place is in west Vancouver, so I know where the good grocery stores are, things like that.”
“I can grocery shop now,” her mother told her proudly. “Our neighborhood store has great scooter carts. How is Teri?”
“She’s doing well. At her salon today, cutting and curling.”
“That girl is talented,” Wendy said. “I hope she’s doing your hair for you.”
“She is.” Natalie put up a hand to her own long, strawberry blonde hair, currently knotted on the top of her head and damp with sweat. “I was going to cut it, but she talked me out of it.”
“Well, I should hope so. You have all that natural wave and shine, why would you want to cut that?” Not waiting for an answer, Wendy moved on. “Now, have you been to the bar?”
Natalie shifted in her lounger, guilt and shame assailing her as if she were a third grader called upon to discuss a lesson she hadn’t studied.
Rambles, the bar that she and Tony had built before their marriage fell apart, was the reason she’d come back to Vancouver. But she’d been here four days and she’d yet to see the place.
“No,” she mumbled. “Not yet.”
“Really?” her mother asked, shock in her voice. “Why not?”
Nat squirmed in her chair again. “I don’t know. I just—it’s hard, okay?” Her heart began to thump the way it did every time she imagined driving out to the bar.
“Aw, honey,” her mother soothed. “Of course it’s gonna be hard. I was just surprised because you’re my all-or-nothing girl, you know? You always charge into things with so much ... enthusiasm.”
Yeah, and Nat usually managed to run head-first into hard, immoveable objects, too. Maybe she’d finally learned some caution. Not likely. The truth was, she was just a big chicken—scared to take this one more chance to throw herself at the barricade and break through to make something of herself and her life.
Because if this didn’t work, Nat had nothing. And the only way it was going to work was if she threw everything she had—time, energy and money—into it. As well as all she could borrow.
“Do you wanna wait till Lara and I can come down and go with you?” her mother asked.
Nat imagined Lara’s reaction to being asked to drive for three hours to babysit her older sister while she faced an empty building, one that Natalie owned. The no-nonsense science teacher would not be impressed.
“No, you don’t need to do that,” Natalie said. “I just need to set a time and make myself do it, you know?”
“Okay,” her mother said. “You wanna do that now?”
Natalie huffed a laugh. “O-kay. No time like the present. Let’s see, today is Friday. I’ll go ... Sunday morning.”
This gave her another day and a half to nerve herself up for the prospect of driving out to the place where she and Tony had built their dream, and then where he’d ended it all in one drunken splash. Of course the end of her marriage had begun months before, it had just taken Nat that long to clue in.
“Okay,” her mother repeated. “Sunday. And you can call me if you need me. I’ll be here.”
“I know, Mama,” Nat said.
“And then once you get past that, you can make time in your life for some fun,” Wendy added. “Maybe meet a nice guy.”
“I’m not really—” Nat began. Re-opening the bar was one thing. Re-opening herself to love? Oh, hell no.
Her mother over-rode her with determined cheer. “I know you’re not looking to get married again, honey. I’m just talking about a handsome man who’ll take you out on dates. Buy you flowers. Take you dancing ... things like that. Fun things.”
“Right,” Natalie agreed, because it was easier than arguing with someone who only wanted her to be happy. “A girl can always use some fun. Love you, Mama.”
“Love you too, sweetheart.”
Nat disconnected the call and lay back in the lawn chair. She flung one forearm over her forehead and squinted at the perfect green lawns and shrubbery of the condo grounds.
In spite of everything that had happened in Wendy Cusco’s own life—a husband who had taken off with a girlfriend, leaving her to raise two little girls, a life of hard work and now the accident—Wendy was convinced that forward action would solve every problem, and the faster one got going, the better.
Lara said—with exasperation—that Natalie was more like their mother than their mother was, whatever that meant. Nat guessed it was because while Lara was cautious and took forever to work up to things, Nat believed in forward action too.
Except that she had this really, really bad habit of charging at situations, and people, who didn’t especially want her to move them. And they reacted by pushing her away in ways that hurt, soul deep.
The way Tony had.
She smiled bitterly to herself. River Ridge thought she’d neglected her marriage, sent him into the arms of other women. Little did they know it had been the other way around. He’d been running from her.
Now he was gone.
Re-opening Rambles felt like her last chance to do something right. To grab hold of a dream that was her own and make it work.
And now she had a deadline to face the place that had embodied all the dreams of her marriage and then the absolute wreck of those dreams. All gone, into the river along with Tony and his shiny blue pickup truck.
And to see if she had the nerve to charge one more time ... with everything she had left, and then some.